ABSTRACT

In 1976, the architect Robert Stern prepared a project for the Venice Biennale entitled Subway Suburb. Today, ad hoc in-fill and rehab efforts have removed the possibility of inventing whole new neighborhoods in the Bronx, but there are many other cities where a development like this would be possible. The politics of such a change are admittedly tricky. People who still live in bypassed inner-city neighborhoods are well aware of the area's real estate potential and are on guard against being shunted aside to make room for suburbanites. The redevelopment of large sections of the Hill District in Pittsburgh creates a new suburban environment designed to serve the population of an area that has been a low-income black neighborhood for a long time. At a Regional Plan Association conference on the future of the inner city, a real estate developer was asked what the first move should be in making a bypassed urban area an attractive alternative to suburbia.